


North

by NateFraust



Series: Statues [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Season/Series Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-18 14:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18701635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NateFraust/pseuds/NateFraust
Summary: "We will call this place our home,The dirt in which our roots may grow.Though the storms will push and pull,We will call this place our home."- North, Sleeping at Last---The Lady of Winterfell mourns, grows, and remembers.





	North

The dead fill the hall, rows upon rows of them, like some macabre garden of bones and brains and broken things. She recognizes a few: Denys and Kaevar, Hanely, Mord and Rickard. Anthy, who’d helped to braid her hair in the Southron fashion in order to impress that accursed blonde devil all those years ago. She lets out a quiet sob at the sight of Old Nan, her face smoothed out in death, but hands clenched in prayer forevermore.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Jacks hovering close to the quintet, hand clenched over his mouth as unshed tears shine in his deep blue eyes. He lingers by Hanely for a moment, gaze locked on the other’s features, before jerking his head up and walking stiffly away from the group.

She sighs to herself, then returns to the task at hand. Ever so gently, she dips the old piece of cloth in the bucket of fire-warmed water and scrubs at his face, clearing away the grime and gore from his final moments. The rag comes away nearly black, and smells strongly of old metal and the sea.

Her lips quirk up at the coincidence.

* * *

 

Tyrion finds her later, still sitting vigil over his cold body even as the candles are lit and the room begins to reek of smoky firewood - and burning corpses. She can feel his gaze on her flicker as he looks between her face and his, like two blocks of stone carved from the same icy chisel.

He opens his mouth, inhales, but stops. Tries again. Fails again.

Finally, he exhales, “A shame that the Night King wasn’t Ironborn; the Drowned God would have finished the task _for_ us.”

She stiffens, and she can see a grimace take over his face at her change in posture from the corner of her eye.

“Sorry. I- well, I-”

“Bran has informed me that Yara Greyjoy’s fleet has docked at White Harbor for a time, and that she is coming to Winterfell for allies against her uncle’s forces. Both of us will be leaving with her and Jon and Daenerys’ forces to take back King’s Landing from your sister.” Her voice, as hard and rough as frozen river rapids, brooked no chance for argument.

Tyrion’s mouth gaped for a moment, then shut with a sudden, audible _klk_.

“Indeed, my lady.”

She heard him turn and waddle away, only stopping when she threw out, “And Tyrion?”

“Yes?”

“Inform _Her Grace_ to instruct her forces that Theon’s body is not to be touched or burned by anyone unless _I_ allow it. Understand?”

“Crystal, Lady Stark.”

* * *

 

She watches, along with the last Greyjoy, as his body floats out towards the storm raging in the distance. The stones dig into the light soles of her boots, causing them to ache, but she remains still, watching, recording, remembering, until the speck is suddenly sucked beneath the raging waves.

“He would’ve been proud of you,” Yara says quietly, causing her to look at the woman as she continues to stare out at the swelling storm. “Learning how to fight like us, how to war and reave like us… Killing that greenladen bastard.”

She looks back at the storm, then turns and walks back towards the waiting pair of Brienne and Tormund.

“Keep that black blade sharp, Stark, ya hear?”

* * *

 

For as long as she could remember, she’d heard the same phrase again and again, from so many others: _there must always be a Stark in Winterfell_ . When she was young, she couldn’t fuly grasp it: the enormity, the _prophecy_ , of that statement. It was simply a phrase the old folk used, muttered words under Father’s breath, much like the whispers of lions paying debts by the smallfolk.

She scoffs at the utter naiveté she’d once held, on so, _so_ many things. She’d looked south for years, wishing for such _idiotic_ things as princes and tourneys and kingly heirs, when all along, her roots shrivelled and rotted away. It had been a suffocating time, those three years at King’s Landing, and then…

She shudders.

Without someone as firm as a Stark at its’ helm, the North and its’ people had fallen to weak men, with weak hearts and minds. But strength comes from remembering what, and _who_ , came before, and so, she remains.

She moves on, lighting the candles beside Father, beside Mother, beside Robb and Rickon; the memories weigh her down.

Aunt Lyanna, the Arya before Arya. Uncle Brandon, and Grandfather Rickard. Further still, to Edwyle, to Rodrik, to the Builder, the Breaker, the Burner, to the Daughterless, the Bitter, and the Sweet. She walks the length and breadth of them all, from end to end.

And yet…

She pauses at the Stark that bears his name, mind casting back to remember the long-dead man’s significance, and smirks at the irony when she recalls his seamanship. But, as it has been drawn all these months and days and years, the beating in her chest draws her feet, her gaze, to stand before him, finally.

She reaches up to brush at a stray snowdrop on his cheek, like _his_ tears had leaked and frozen, instead of hers’. The granite is freezing to the touch, the cold sticking to her fingers for a moment after she removes them; oh, how she wishes the sensation could travel to her center and numb it from the jagged wound left there. How she wishes Symeon had gotten some pale sort of stone to add the streaks of white into his hair from that wretched time as the bastard’s plaything. How she wishes that she could believe in the wholeness of his hands, his feet, his eyes.

But she remembers. She remembers, and she mourns, for the lost boy with a home no one could see, for the airy girl with such innocence in her gait, for the broken wretch who’d saved them both.

Most of all, though, she weeps for the love she still holds, and for the words she will take unheard to the grave, even as she whispers them through choked breaths and a tear-filled gaze.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is the start of a collection of short stories after the series has ended, which will involve a statue of some sort at some point in time in all of the stories (hopefully). Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> -Nate


End file.
